10th, 11th and 12th days

Here is installment two of the lovely presents I got in the 12 days of Christmas swap.

A really clever pencil pot which folds flat for posting from Lyn.

 

 

An elegant bracelet from Hilda.

 

 

A lovely zipped case from Natalie - so nice I daren't put pencils in it in case I make it messy.

 

 

A pretty needle case from Fiona.

 

 

And last but by no means least, a really colourful flag book from Pauline.

 

With thanks to all the swappers for their amazing creations.

 

I'm looking forward to a new year of creativity and swapping.

On the 9th day of Christmas part 1

Christmas 2012 was the fourth year I have had the priviledge of participating in a 12 days of Christmas swap with some very talented artists.

I was kept very busy for several weeks in October and November creating my 12 gifts for the swap. This year I made little cards of handmade buttons, parcelled up in decorated boxes.

The boxes are little papier mache ones. The lids were embossed with various types of fruit which I wasn't keen on so I started by spreading on a thick layer of molding paste to disguise this. I then painted a couple of coats of white acylic. once dry I applied clear Croco to a few areas. Once this had dried and cracked I rubbed Distress Ink into the gaps and finished off with pools of Diamond Glaze sprinkled with glitter.

 

Here are a sample of the buttons I made. Each box had four cards - one of resin buttons created in a mold, one of polymer clay square buttons, one of shirnk plastic flowers (coloured with alcohol ink and Brilliance Ink) and one large molded clay button.

Any one any ideas what to do with a large batch of shrink plastic flowers with no holes made without sufficient attention!

I made a little stamped gift card for each parcel.

And tied them all up with sparkling cord.

 

This year twelve of us participated so I got one of my own parcels back and for the other days of Christmas I received:

 

A gleaming textured canvas from Annie.

 

Two little books from Pattie and Wendy respectively.



 Three brooches from Adrienne, Jean and Mary.



AWOL

My goodness. I can't believe it is nearly three months since I last posted. what a bad blogger I am, and that's not all! My 365 journal went off course too. October got some journalling but life went a bit awry and I didn't feel like writing so never finished it off. November got a background but nothing else, and once that happened it was nearly Christmas and I just never caught up. I think I'm going to give it a miss for 2013 - the feeling of failure when I don't keep up is one extra worry I don't need right now.

I have been keeping up with the alpabetica postcard swap though. U was definitely the most difficult for me although that might have been because it coincided with other things and my creative muse was on a low ebb anyway.

Here are the remaining letters I made for the swaps.

U and V...

 W and X...
 

 



Y...Yule and yellow

 

 

Z... zigzags and zentangle

Nothing changes

September whizzed by. Back to the normal routines now school is back and a huge bundle of birthdays to boot including, on 21st, what would have been the birthday of both colleagues who died far too young earlier this year.

We have an unwritten rule in our house that C*******s isn't mentioned until the birthday season is over - and that extends into October in our family. It doesn't stop the shops having Christmas cards on the shelves before the schools go back though.

 

It turns out that the aqua drops in the background of my September 365 (well 366 this year as Kate has reminded us) journal was very appropriate for the weather. York and other villages around us have been flooded recently.
My October page is all Halloweeny and batty - like me.

I have just kept upto date with my alphabetical themed post card swaps - getting Q and R done in the nick of time.

Q obviously is for queen, complete with gold and diamond embellishment.

And also for quilt so I patchworked patterned paper and sewed on a letter Q for good measure.

I sketched a round robin for R, making him as circular as I could and colouring in with pencils.

 And on the reverse a red background stamped with some roses.



 And at the end of last week I had a little blitz and got myself sorted with October's letters already. With apologies for those of a sensitive nature S is for scary, spooky, splatter, scream, skeleton, spider, scalpel, slasher etc. Thankfully not all feature!

I'd  got whatever it was out of my system then and the reverse is seaside in water colours with a frame made out of string.

What could be better for T that a turquoise background featuring two twins, Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

 And on the reverse some travel tickets.

I know I said I wasn't looking forward to X but U has already got me thinking ready for next month.